Up until now, the extraterrestrial mining was only a hypothetical solution for the future. Over the years several attempts to start extraterrestrial mining operations have been made. Several companies are developing space mining technologies. Extraterrestrial mining, as well as Earth mining, have four major common components: prospect, explore, extract, transport. Transportation of the extracted material in terrestrial mining operations is quite a trivial task, the celestial mining requires transportation efforts of different kind and magnitude. Mining machinery, human crews or robots must be delivered to asteroids, the Moon, other planets. The extracted material has to be delivered to its final destination, either Earth, or other human settlements within our Solar system or beyond. Same old chemical propulsion technology with an extremely low specific impulse due to very limited fuel reserves on board a spacecraft result in exorbitant transportation cost and extremely prohibitive expense/income ratio. Less than 5% of a rocket’s starting mass reaches orbit.
The invention of Astrodrive, constant acceleration propulsion device with infinite “fuel” reserves and, therefore, specific impulse, could make the asteroid mining a near future reality. Interplanetary shuttle, capable of transporting on a single flight in an economically viable manner tens or even hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo from and to Earth, between the planets of the Solar system and human space habitats, will enable full scale commercial extraterrestrial mining operations. The cost of space cargo transportation will not exceed the cost of air transportation on Earth.
Despite the high initial price tag, the development of asteroid mining, using Astrodrive propulsion technology, is most certainly a worthwhile endeavor due to the extremely valuable resources that asteroids and the Moon have to offer. For example, Asterank, which measures the potential value of over 6,000 asteroids that NASA currently tracks, has determined that mining just the top 10 most cost-effective asteroids, those that are both closest to Earth and greatest in value–would produce a profit of around US$1.5 trillion. There is also great potential for further expansion within the asteroid belt. One asteroid, 16 Psyche, has been reported to contain US $10 Quintillion (yes, it's 18 zeroes) worth of gold, nickel, platinum and other metals. Certain asteroids hold more pure metals in great quantities, a study by NASA supports that the asteroid belt could be worth around 700 Quintillion dollars.
There are a few different classifications of asteroids to help make the decisions on which one to mine. ✧C-type: contain minimal materials for miners ✧S-type: contain an abundance of minerals ✧M-type: contain 10 times the minerals found in S-type Minerals that can be found in asteroids are: iron, nickel, cobalt, copper, iridium, palladium, platinum, gold, osmium, ruthenium, rhodium and magnesium to name a few. Rare-earth metals are also potential targets of asteroid miners intending to service Earth markets. Consisting of 17 elements, including lanthanum, neodymium, and yttrium, these critical materials (most of which are today mined in China at great environmental cost) are required for electronics. And they loom as bottlenecks in making the transition from fossil fuels to renewables backed up by battery storage.
Metal, however, is not the only thing that would be mined from asteroids. There is a certain interest in the mining of water. NASA has been experimenting with the idea of water extraction from asteroids within the scope of their project adequately named ARM. The idea is not currently financially stable but could be an interesting industry and option for earth in the future. Mining asteroids for water would also support space travel endeavors as a means of supporting life different from sending goods out from earth. The Moon may look parched — and by comparison to Earth, it is. But recent probes have confirmed substantial amounts of water ice lurking in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles. Further, it seems that solar winds have implanted significant deposits of helium-3 (a light stable isotope of helium) across the equatorial regions of the Moon. Helium-3 is a potential fuel source for second and third-generation fusion reactors that one hopes will be in service later in the century. The isotope is packed with energy (admittedly hard to unleash in a controlled manner) that might augment sunlight as a source of clean, safe energy on Earth or to power fast spaceships in this century. Between its water and helium-3 deposits, the Moon could be the resource stepping-stone for further solar system exploration.
